Paul Conrad Quotes

I didn't think that personal style had much value in graphic design.

Drawing is putting a line around an idea.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

What is bad painting? Picabia made some deliberately bad paintings, but they were by him, so great in a way.

I feel that all good art is powerful and simple.

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

The only reason that you do visual is solely for the visual. That's the only reason. It doesn't sell your music for you.

Maybe I could have been good as a drawer if I had done it as much as I did writing, but it's more scary to draw. It's more revealing. You can't disguise yourself in drawing.

Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.

As a visual person, I love a creative resume. Putting in a little effort on the design side will show that you care about making things look good.

You think about the beauty and what you want to transmit. If I think about designing, I can't design.

People understand what art is supposed to look like, and so it's easy to make something that looks like art but isn't - especially in an abstract form.

Drawings help people to work out intricate relationships between parts.

Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative. It is the last-ditch stand of the artist.

I don't think we have reached a point where art really translates into science. Perhaps for some people, having good visuals can help translate into science.

A painting is like a man. If you can live without it, then there isn't much point in having it.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

I try to push a single idea to its absolute limit. So for all of those ideas that existed in the story, you attempt to find a physical realisation in the space.

Painting does more than just point to things. The very act of pointing is a value statement.

I think of a designer as a processor of information — like a scriptwriter or a novelist.

To draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought.

A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist's world. Just as a flower, by virtue of its existence as a complete organism is both ornamental and self-sufficient as to color, form, and texture, so art, because of its singular existence is more than mere ornament.

Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them . . .

Straight lines vary only in length, and therefore are least ornamental.